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Saturday, March 09, 2013

The State Department made another major oopsy by not taking the time to vet Egyptian activist Samira Ibrahim before offering her the International Women of Courage Award. One would think they would have taken the time to vet an individual before bestowing upon them a prestigious award, but nope.

It turns out Samira, who sued the military-led government and won a ban against forced virginity tests after she was subjected to one after being arrested during the Tahrir Square protests in 2011, has posted anti-Semitic and anti-American comments on her Twitter account.

Last August 4, commenting on demonstrations in Saudi Arabia, she described the ruling Al Saud family as “dirtier than the Jews.” Seventeen days later she tweeted in reference to Adolf Hitler: “I have discovered with the passage of days, that no act contrary to morality, no crime against society, takes place, except with the Jews having a hand in it. Hitler.”

Screen Capture with page translation

Ibrahim holds other repellent views as well. As a mob was attacking the United States embassy in Cairo on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, pulling down the American flag and raising the flag of Al Qaeda, Ibrahim wrote on twitter: “Today is the anniversary of 9/11. May every year come with America burning.” Possibly fearing the consequences of her tweet, she deleted it a couple of hours later, but not before a screen shot was saved by an Egyptian activist.

Michelle Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry were to present the award until enough people started balking. So they've deferred, for the time being. According to the State Department's Victoria Nuland:

“We as a department became aware very late in the process about Samira Ibrahim’s alleged public comments." “After careful consideration, we’ve decided that we should defer presenting this award to Ms. Ibrahim this year so that we have a chance to look further into these statements.”

Mrs. Nuland added that Mrs. Ibrahim “has categorically denied” to the State Department that she wrote the unsavory messages and claimed that “she was hacked” by someone else who made the remarks on her behalf. “But we need some time and, in order to be prudent, to conduct our own review,” Mrs. Nuland said.

So why are those offensive Tweets that were allegedly posted by hackers months ago still on her Twitter feed? Had my Twitter account been hacked, you can rest assured that I would have removed every single hacked comment. The State Department is probably just trying to save face, hoping that with time all will be forgotten.